Deaths 'with' COVID-19

[Gettinggrumpier]

I agree the death rate is shocking. However, what would the UK death rate be, if the figures did not include situations such as a 97 year old with dementia, who fell and went into hospital, tested positive for COVID but was asymptomatic, who then passed away.

Do other countries record these types of deaths in their figures.
What is the percentage of elderly people in each country? Without recording figures in the same way, how can the media continually claim we are one of the countries with the highest death rate.

Isn't it extremely well known that in normal times, if you are elderly, fall and go into hospital, the chances of not recovering are very high.

I do so wish that more context is put into the daily headline figures and that mainstream media reaching for the quick, simple attention grabbing headline and instead provide more nuanced reporting.

I suppose the only way of knowing a rough figure would be to look at how many people died in total in the previous 3/5 years, get an average and then see how many people 'extra' died in 2020 that'd tell you roughly how many people died of covid rather than with covid

As far as I know the number with CV as a named contributory cause of death in the cert is only a little lower than the current measure.

The only way we'll really know how much having Covid led to the death of someone who had a stroke for example is by looking at total above expected deaths - which might be higher.

Aplogies for missing question marks.

And poor spelling!

And don't forget that by using the 'positive test within 28 days' rules out those who came into hospital with serious Covid symptoms and then died after spending 5 weeks in ICU - they won't have been retested.

There are two cases that I know of where the patient tested negative for covid (in one case the patient had two negative tests) and when they died their deaths were recorded as covid deaths. I did try to find out why that was but couldn't get any answers. I have no idea if other deaths are being recorded in a similar way, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

Apparently half of people in ICU are under 65. That would be a good number for your research OP.

100,162 died within 28 days of a positive test.

103,602 deaths with Covid on the death certificate. (ONS) Of those around 90% had Covid as the leading cause of death and the remainder had Covid listed as a contributing cause.

Anything that goes on the death certificate is something that the person ultimately died "from" or "of".

Apparently it would not be much different and we actually reached the 100,000 mark about 3 weeks ago so numbers are actually higher. Was the person with dementia a relative of yours?

Excess deaths here:

adapnation.io/covid-insights/

so atm, around 6,000 compared with the last 5 years average.

Also OP, don't the deaths with Covid roughly cancel out the number of people who definitely died from Covid (i.e. they wouldn't have expected to die this year otherwise), but outside of the 28 day period?
I'm mindful that many people on MN have lost loved ones, so don't really like talking about deaths in this abstract way. It's personal. For lots of people.

I can't see any government shutting schools on data that had any more than a small margin of error.

Whatever they flaws this is the system they are using so these are the figures they are basing their decisions on.

They are being advised by experts in many fields. I am sure their figures are about correct, as correct as you can be under these circumstances.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s is the biggest killers in the U.K.

Covid comes in at 11% the average age of covid death is 82

Correction to above, probably more than That, my maths is crap today.
However, the summer deaths went into “negative”

This confused me. On the news they said deaths for any reason within 28 days of a positive covid test. What does that really mean?

@formerbabe

This confused me. On the news they said deaths for any reason within 28 days of a positive covid test. What does that really mean?

The death within 28 days of a test is just quick estimate for COVID deaths. It's a pretty good estimate, although an underestimate. It's got nothing to do with the MCCD.

It expressly doesn't attempt to include all Covid deaths or only Covid deaths.

It's a metric for promptly monitoring trend changes.

It totals to less than the total deaths from Covid.

What are looking for from this thread? Someone to produce figures to say that if you took away all the 'with covid' deaths it would be no more than any other year; that it's no worse than flu? That they know of at least 50,000 people who were in road traffic accidents but recorded as covid deaths? Are we waiting for the posters to come along who think medics are being paid extra to say a death is from covid?

@TheDailyCarbunkle - I said 'apparently' because it was reported that Sir Simon Stevens, NHS boss, told the House of Commons this today.
I haven't actually seen the figures in any data.

This is false. I don't know if you're mixed up or lying, but either way what you're saying is not true.

No, it's you who is incorrect here. Median age of patients in ITU is 60 years old, in other words half of patients in ICU are under 60 and half are over 60. It's in the ICNARC reports which are published regularly.
www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports

So @DianaT1969 is not "lying" - more than half the people in ICU are indeed under 65.

[quote DianaT1969]@TheDailyCarbunkle - I said 'apparently' because it was reported that Sir Simon Stevens, NHS boss, told the House of Commons this today.
I haven't actually seen the figures in any data. [/quote]
Do you have a link to that? Because if that's what he reported then it's an absolutely colossal jump considering that, as of Jan 11th, only 25% of total admissions (not ICU admissions) were people under 55.

Aren't flu deaths abnormally low this year? Due to PPE, hand washing, social distancing and people working or socialisng indoors together? So the excess deaths number is skewed because we're in lockdown 3.0.

This is a useful article explaining this OP.
Basically, more people have actually died of Covid than the 28 day figures show, as these include deaths over 28 days. And ONS stats show deaths of covid - ie when it's cause on death certificate.

www.covidfaq.co/Claim-People-are-dying-with-Covid-but-not-of-Covid-e9d5af56419a438bb626bb08271b3b69

@carcarbinks

Apparently it would not be much different and we actually reached the 100,000 mark about 3 weeks ago so numbers are actually higher. Was the person with dementia a relative of yours?

She was the mother of an acquaintance and caught COVID in the hospital.

I am just bemused by our our obsession with COVID deaths. Millions of children die in third world countries every year, but do so silently away from the world's media glare. I do feel guilty about thinking, 'old people have to die sometime' (I'm an older person myself). Then) listening to teenagers and parents of young children rightly citing the immense damage being done to children's future life chances, for the sake of preventing elderly deaths.

I know that it's not just about preventing deaths, whether young or old. It's about protecting, the NHS and the staff on the front line.

I know that, but I am soon at the point of just continuing to isolate from everyone, but switching off from the news and statistics.

I wish people would have been asking this more during the last year.
So many people hanging everything (including their mental well-being) on the figures we are being served up.
Time and retrospect will tell.